For 30 years it has been used to test the fitness of officers who police riots and other outbreaks of serious public disorder.
The so-called ‘shield run’ involves officers covering a distance of 500 metres in less than two minutes, 45 seconds while wearing full riot gear and carrying a shield.
But when Inspector Diane Bamber, 51, failed to meet the time limit, she claimed she had been left humiliated.
She brought a sex and age discrimination case against her force, Greater Manchester Police, and now stands to win up to £30,000 after an employment tribunal ruled in her favour.
The landmark case has opened the door for thousands of other women officers to claim payouts and has triggered a review of specialist police training across the country.
Insp Bamber, a serving officer for more than 30 years who still works for Greater Manchester Police, attended an Initial Public Order Commanders’ Course in Lancashire in November 2008.
She complained to the tribunal that prior to the course starting she had been led to believe that she would not have to take part in the shield run. But on the day of the test, Insp Bamber was informed that all officers who wanted to be considered for events where trouble was a possibility would have to pass it.
She agreed to run but she did not finish in the allotted time. Her failure meant she could not complete the rest of the training course.
[…]In her ruling, Judge Hilary Slater said Insp Bamber’s claims of indirect sex and age discrimination were ‘well-founded’.
Noting that the officer had ‘suffered humiliation at being sent away from the course’, Judge Slater added: ‘The tribunal concludes that the claimant was put at the disadvantage suffered by women and persons of her age group in that she failed the test and was not able to complete the training.’
The shield run was first introduced in the Eighties when Scotland Yard used it to test the fitness of officers policing the Notting Hill Carnival. Greater Manchester Police also conducted the runs for 30 years but has now dropped them.
The Mail on Sunday understands that the Association of Chief Police Officers is now reviewing the lawfulness of the physical training formats for 13 specialist operational roles, including those for firearms officers, which could discriminate against women and older officers.
Last night [Conservative] MP Robert Halfon said: ‘At a time when forces face enormous challenges and need to do all they can to protect frontline service, it is bizarre they are being forced to use taxpayers’ money to pay compensation in cases such as these.’
Now ask yourself a question. If the police force was completely private, and had to compete for security contracts with other firms, how long do you think someone who could not pass the physical fitness exams would last? That’s right. But there is no choice and competition for government services. You just pay your taxes and the left-wing bureaucrats decide how much service you’ll get. Their agenda is not driven by concerns about serving you – the customer. Their agenda is about winning the votes of special interest groups by appearing nice. If you call for the police, and your life depends on it, then you can have a nice die, because no one is coming to save you.
Ms. Bachmann is best known for her conservative activism on issues like abortion, but what I want to talk about today is economics. When I ask who she reads on the subject, she responds that she admires the late Milton Friedman as well as Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. “I’m also an Art Laffer fiend—we’re very close,” she adds. “And [Ludwig] von Mises. I love von Mises,” getting excited and rattling off some of his classics like “Human Action” and “Bureaucracy.” “When I go on vacation and I lay on the beach, I bring von Mises.”
Picture of a book Michele Bachmann reads on the hot beach
The Wall Street Journal explains more:
As we rush from her first-floor digs in the Cannon House Office Building to the House floor so she can vote, I ask for her explanation of the 2008 financial meltdown. “There were a lot of bad actors involved, but it started with the Community Reinvestment Act under Jimmy Carter and then the enhanced amendments that Bill Clinton made to force, in effect, banks to make loans to people who lacked creditworthiness. If you want to come down to a bottom line of ‘How did we get in the mess?’ I think it was a reduction in standards.”
She continues: “Nobody wanted to say, ‘No.’ The implicit and then the explicit guarantees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were sopping up the losses. Being on the Financial Services Committee, I can assure you, all roads lead to Freddie and Fannie.”
Photo of a book Michelle Bachman reads on the hot beach
The Wall Street Journal explains more:
Ms. Bachmann voted against the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) “both times,” she boasts, and she has no regrets since Congress “just gave the Treasury a $700 billion blank check.” She complains that no one bothered to ask about the constitutionality of these extraordinary interventions into the financial markets. “During a recent hearing I asked Secretary [Timothy] Geithner three times where the constitution authorized the Treasury’s actions, and his response was, ‘Well, Congress passed the law.'”
Insufficient focus on constitutional limits to federal power is a Bachmann pet peeve. “It’s like when you come up to a stop sign and you’re driving. Some people have it in their mind that the stop sign is optional. The Constitution is government’s stop sign. It says, you—the three branches of government—can go so far and no farther. With TARP, the government blew through the Constitutional stop sign and decided ‘Whatever it takes, that’s what we’re going to do.'”
Does this mean she would have favored allowing the banks to fail? “I would have. People think when you have a, quote, ‘bank failure,’ that that is the end of the bank. And it isn’t necessarily. A normal way that the American free market system has worked is that we have a process of unwinding. It’s called bankruptcy. It doesn’t mean, necessarily, that the industry is eclipsed or that it’s gone. Often times, the phoenix rises out of the ashes.”
Pics of a book Michelle Bauchman reads on the hot beach
The Wall Street Journal explains more:
“For one, I believe my policies prior to ’08 would have been much different from [President Bush’s]. I wouldn’t have spent so much money,” she says, pointing in particular at the Department of Education and the Medicare prescription drug bill. “I would have advocated for greater reductions in the corporate tax rate and reductions in the capital gains rate—even more so than what the president did.” Mr. Bush cut the capital gains rate to 15% from 20% in 2003.
She’s also no fan of the Federal Reserve’s decade-long policy of flooding the U.S. economy with cheap money. “I love a lowered interest rate like anyone else. But clearly the Fed has had competing goals and objectives. One is the soundness of money and then the other is jobs. The two different objectives are hard to reconcile. What has gotten us into deep trouble and has people so perturbed is the debasing of the currency.”
That’s why, if she were president, she wouldn’t renominate Ben Bernanke as Fed chairman: “I think that it’s very important to demonstrate to the American people that the Federal Reserve will have a new sheriff” to keep the dollar strong and stable.
[…]Ms. Bachmann attributes many of her views, especially on economics, to her middle-class upbringing in 1960s Iowa and Minnesota. She talks with almost religious fervor about the virtues of living frugally, working hard and long hours, and avoiding debt. When she was growing up, she recalls admiringly, Iowa dairy farmers worked from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Her political opponents on the left portray her as a “she-devil,” in her words, a caricature at odds with her life accomplishments. She’s a mother of five, and she and her husband helped raise 23 teenage foster children in their home, as many as four at a time. They succeeded in getting all 23 through high school and later founded a charter school.
Michele Bachman is actually willing to pass a lower corporate tax rate than even Tim Pawlenty’s 15% rate:
If she were to take her shot, she’d run on an economic package reminiscent of Jack Kemp, the late congressman who championed supply-side economics and was the GOP vice presidential nominee in 1996. “In my perfect world,” she explains, “we’d take the 35% corporate tax rate down to nine so that we’re the most competitive in the industrialized world. Zero out capital gains. Zero out the alternative minimum tax. Zero out the death tax.”
The 3.8 million-word U.S. tax code may be irreparable, she says, a view she’s held since working as a tax attorney at the IRS 20 years ago. “I love the FAIR tax. If we were starting over from scratch, I would favor a national sales tax.” But she’s not a sponsor of the FAIR tax bill because she fears that enacting it won’t end the income tax, and “we would end up with a dual tax, a national sales tax and an income tax.”
Her main goal is to get tax rates down with a broad-based income tax that everyone pays and that “gets rid of all the deductions.” A system in which 47% of Americans don’t pay any tax is ruinous for a democracy, she says, “because there is no tie to the government benefits that people demand. I think everyone should have to pay something.”
On the stump she emphasizes an “America-centered energy policy” based on “drilling and mining for our rich resources here.” And she believes that repealing ObamaCare is a precondition to restoring a prosperous economy.
[…]Ms. Bachmann also voted for the Republican Study Committee budget that cuts deeper and faster than even Mr. Ryan would. “We do have an obligation with Social Security and Medicare, and we have to recognize that” for those who are already retired, she says. But after that, it’s Katy bar the door: “Everything else is expendable to bring spending down,” and she’d ax “whole departments” including the Department of Education.
From Patheos, an article by New Testament scholar and pastor Mark D. Roberts.
Introduction:
For Christians, Pentecost is a holiday on which we commemorate the coming of the Holy Spirit on the early followers of Jesus. Before the events of the first Pentecost, which came a few weeks after Jesus’ death and resurrection, there were followers of Jesus, but no movement that could be meaningfully called “the church.” Thus, from an historical point of view, Pentecost is the day on which the church was started. This is also true from a spiritual perspective, since the Spirit brings the church into existence and enlivens it. Thus Pentecost is the church’s birthday.
I’m guessing most of you know the story of what happens. Peter preaches on who Jesus was, and the meaning of his bodily resurrection – and a whole lot of people believe him and become Christians.
Here are the topics that Roberts mentions in the article:
The Presence and Power of the Spirit
The Central Role of the Church in God’s Work in the World
The Multilingual Nature and Mission of the Church
The Inclusive Ministry of the Church
I wanted to excerpt the part of the article where Dr. Roberts explains a part that I think is important.
Excerpt:
3. The Multilingual Nature and Mission of the Church
On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit empowered believers in Jesus to praise God in many languages that they had not learned in the ordinary manner (Acts 2:5-13). Symbolically, this miracle reinforces the multilingual, multicultural, multiracial mission of the church. We are to be a community in which all people are drawn together by God’s love in Christ. As Paul writes in Galatians 3:28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Personal Implications: Although there are some glorious exceptions, it seems that the church has not, in general, lived out its multilingual mission. We are often divided according to language, race, and ethnicity. Pentecost challenges all of us to examine our own attitudes in the regard, to reject and repent of any prejudice that lurks within us, and to open our hearts to all people, even and especially those who do not share our language and culture. Yes, I know this is not easy. But it is central to our calling. And it is something that the Spirit of God will help us to do if we are available.
So this is a good thing to remember. Anyone who is willing to believe in Christ and re-prioritize their lives based on his identity and teachings can be a Christian.The Holy Spirit is available to anyone who is willing to respond to God’s drawing them towards himself – anyone who asks God to forgive their sins and re-orient their lives to that it is Christ-directed.
You really can’t look at a person and tell what they are going to be able to contribute to the mission of Christ. They might have a different skin color. They could come from far-away countries. And have different cultural backgrounds. They could be single and childless, or they could be married with children. They could be lonely or popular. They could be ugly or beautiful. They could be emotional and artistic, or scientific and technical. They could come from a happy family or have no family. They could be rich or they could be poor. They might not fit the mold of what we expect for what counts as a good Christian.
I’m not turning a blind eye to sin here, because sin that is celebrated and unrepented IS a reason to reject someone’s claim to be a Christian. I am trying to point out that we should not be rejecting or discounting sincere, effective Christians for non-moral considerations. This is not a country club. It’s all hands on deck.
